Beginning Python Visualization (eBook)

Shai Vaingast has been an engineer, an engineering manager, and a director of engineering since 1993. He has worked in the defense industry and in medical engineering, while being heavily involved with data visualization. He holds a patent and has several others pending.

Contents at a Glance 5
Contents 6
About the Author 14
About the Technical Reviewer 15
Acknowledgments 16
Introduction 17
Who This Book Is For 17
How This Book Is Structured 18
Downloading the Code 19
Contacting the Author 19
Navigating the World of Data Visualization A Case Study 20
Gathering Data 21
Data Organization 25
Data Analysis 27
Data Visualization 36
Tying It All Together 44
Final Notes and References 48
The Environment Tools of the Trade 50
Operating Systems 51
The Python Environment 56
Additional Applications 64
Licensing 70
Final Notes and References 71
Python for Programmers The Building Blocks 72
What Is Python? 72
Interactive Python 73
Running Scripts 77
Data Types 79
Data Structures 87
Variables 99
Statements 100
Some Built-in Functions 111
Defining Functions 112
Object-Oriented Programming 115
Modules and Packages 116
Final Notes and References 118
Data Organization Organizing Chaos 119
File Name Conventions 120
File Formats 126
Locating Data Files 144
Final Notes and References 152
Processing Text Files Text Is Everywhere 153
Text and Strings 154
Files 165
Working with Text Files 168
CSV Files 177
Date and Time 181
Regular Expressions 191
Internationalization and Localization 194
Final Notes and References 199
Graphs and Plots Visualizing Data 200
The Matplotlib Package 200
Interactive Graphs vs. Image Files 201
Plotting Graphs 206
Controlling the Graph 211
Adding Text 214
More Graph Types 218
Getting and Setting Values 230
Patches 234
Final Notes and References 237
Math Games Preprocessing Data Prior to Visualization 238
Modules math and cmath 238
Module random 245
Module NumPy 250
Final Notes and References 264
Science and Visualization Numerical Analysis and Signal Processing 266
Finding Your Way: Variables and Functions 267
Linear Algebra 268
Numerical Integration 271
Interpolation and Curve Fitting 275
Solving Nonlinear Equations 284
Special Functions 285
Signal Processing 285
Fourier Transform 292
Filtering 296
Final Notes and References 301
Image Processing Two-Dimensional Data 302
Reading, Writing, and Displaying Images 303
Image Manipulation 308
Image Annotation 311
Image Processing 317
Image Filtering 332
Final Notes and References 334
Advanced File Processing More on Files 335
Binary Files and Random Access 335
Object Serialization 341
Command-Line Parameters 343
File and Directory Manipulation 349
File Compression 353
Comparing Files 355
Final Notes and References 358
Additional Source Listing 359
Nudge Subplots 359
Magic Square Arrows 361
Fractal Function Source Code 363
Index 365